Photo Galleries

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Former Hawthorne Mayor Larry Guidi admitted to taking a commercial food mixer from the Hawthorne School District, where he worked as a warehouse operations manager.

Guidi, 54, was sentenced one year on probation and 100 hours of community service in exchange for his guilty plea to felony grand theft.

Deputy District Attorney Edward Miller says he will not oppose the charge being reduced to a misdemeanor and expunged if Guidi successfully completes probation.

A second charge of commercial burglary was dismissed as part of the plea deal.

Guidi, who served as Hawthorne’s mayor for nearly 20 years, declined to comment outside court after the plea hearing.

Guidi was mayor of Hawthorne when he was charged in June 2010 with the theft of a food mixer and cart from the school district warehouse. The crime was captured by a surveillance camera, which showed Guidi removing the mixer and cart from a shed and loading it on the back of a work truck, Miller said. The $1,300 mixer was later returned.

The prosecution says Guidi took the mixer because he wanted more dough for his home pizza oven.